Sometimes I am trying to focus on what I am doing right now, but I am waiting on a person (or a group chat) to get back to me on something. I'd ideally like to mute all of my chats except that one.
Alternatively, sometimes I've asked a friend to call me in the morning to make sure I'm awake for something important, but leaving my phone off silent causes me to wake up when other people message me? That's another situation where I'd like to mute all the other chats.
Interestingly, Facebook once had this as an option, but it's gone now.
Bring back the "Mute all except" option. It can be implemented in a few different ways. Any (or all) of these interaction patterns would be welcome:
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For chat apps, allow the user to temporarily mute all chats except some.
For phones, allow the user to temporarily mute all apps except some. -
For chat apps, allow the user to indefinitely mark chats as "priority" such that even when the app is generally muted, these chats remain unmuted. (If the user wants total silence, they override by turning the entire phone on silent.)
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For chat apps, allow the user to set alert tones for each chat. This leaves the user with a roundable-but-usable way to mute all chats except some: they can set the general alert tone to be silent, then enable the alert tone for individual chats.